


Children of the Universe

by LizzzBeth



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Canon Universe, Character Study, Freeform, I had a lot of fun with this one, Reflection, but oh well, mostly everything is canon, some things I added as filler
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-26
Updated: 2017-05-26
Packaged: 2018-11-05 02:04:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,254
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11003703
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LizzzBeth/pseuds/LizzzBeth
Summary: Everyone has backstories- has lives they want to have lived. Even soldiers. Even Defenders of the Universe. Even children who were thrust into a war they didn't ask for.///Space is straight up horrible and these children need a break.





	Children of the Universe

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't written anything in a long while and I had an itchin' and a scratchin' to write more Voltron.  
> This was mainly exploratory so I could take a peek inside the character's minds and backstories and how it all relates back into the bigger picture. I may have gotten a bit carried away and added in a lot of poetic verse but THIS WAS A LOT OF FUN, OKAY?!  
> Anyway, I hope y'all like it!

The battle raged on around them, shells firing off not only in the distance but right in their faces. Fires from past explosions stood out against the sandy terrain like supernovae against the black of the sky. Shots whizzed over their heads as they hunkered down and attempted to fire back with the same ferocity. Dust clouded the air, every breath taken in was gritty and scraping and not enough- no never enough. Especially since every breath could be their last.

The Paladins of Voltron fought with every element in their bodies and minds to liberate the planet they were on. This planet and these people were filled with an entire history that they refused to let be extinguished by the demons who bore down on them. This was their main mission. To serve and protect the universe and all who inhabited even the tiniest rock. 

They joined with the planet’s forces, a symbiotic relationship forged in desperation and willingness to do anything to defeat the Galran intruders. One more planet saved meant one more ally in the war. One candle lit meant a brighter future for the universe.

Hearts hammered beneath battered armor and movements faltered under the weight of exhaustion and overexertion. Sweat made everything slick and blood made everything sticky. Loss made everyone weary and grief made everyone angry beyond all reason. Fight, fight, fight. A mantra of battle, a spell cast upon the soldiers that no amount of reason could counter-curse. 

Retreat was no option- victory or death were the only two outcomes. 

***  
***

When Takashi was younger he dreamt of the stars. The pinpoints of ethereal light that prick through the black veil of night. The Milky Way stood out above his head, blanketing the space above him and reminding him of just how small he was and how badly he wanted to drink it in himself.

He laid across the roof of his house, the chill permeating through the night. His last night at home before going to the Galaxy Garrison. His father told him that he was going to change the world. His mother told him that he was going to touch the stars. His heart told him that everything in his life was about to change.

Two months previous he had walked across the graduation stage in his high school’s football field. When his name was called, cheers erupted from the crowd and he smiled at his principal as he accepted the diploma from her. He shook the hands of his teachers and then turned towards his peers and (to the horror of his mother) front-flipped off the stage, holding on to his cap and honors chords.

That night, after he got back from the party his friends had thrown, a letter was waiting for him. He had been accepted into the Garrison. His parents hugged him. His dad cried. His mother scolded Takashi for the alcohol on his breath from the party. He had never been happier.

The years he spent as a student at the Garrison were grueling but he thrived under pressure. He made new friends both in his peers and in his professors. Professor Sam Holt was his favorite, making his required life-science classes fun and exciting, in the way only an old man with a passion could. His son, Matt Holt, grew to be Takashi’s best friend, and gave him the nickname Shiro when he stumbled too many times on his first name. 

He graduated top of his class, Matt coming in close second. It wasn’t long after that that the two began working for the space program. And a few years later Shiro, Matt, and Sam were all chosen for the Kerberos mission.

It seemed his dream had finally come. He wouldn’t touch the stars but he would dance in front of them, studying a distant world that had only been viewed through the barrier of a telescope lens. They were to find signs of microscopic life to prove that they weren’t alone in the universe. 

One small step for man. One giant, indescribably distant leap for Takashi Shirogane.

***

Hunk has always liked his feet firmly on the ground, literally and figuratively. A solid thinker, rationalizer, and always one to put something into perspective. He had been taught by both of his moms from the day he was born to always view the situation head on. 

Since he was six, he had helped his Mama in the garage, the family business. She taught him the ins and outs of an engine. Where the idler pulley goes, how to change out the radiator, how to fine tune the gaskets and so forth. Oil was his life blood and gasoline was his natural musk. More often than not, he could be found in that garage, picking apart the carcass of a dead vehicle and fitting the pieces back together in a creation of his own mind. Each thing he turned out, an invention that rivaled Frankenstein’s own creature, except Hunk would tell you his was better calibrated. 

The roads and trails he rode on his creations fascinated him. The rough sandstone cliffs he test drove a 1978 Ford Pickup under towering over him, their lines etching a history that he could only imagine. The limestone pathways he drove his handmade dirt-bike down leaving white chalky residue on the soles of his boots and the tires of his soul.

When he got to the Garrison, he was determined to become a great engineer, powering their crafts through the empty space that surrounded them. But he also found himself drawn to the sciences. The elements behind the roads he drove down his whole life, the formation of the land around him, the reason behind the earth. He ran top marks in both engineering and geology. 

That is, before the land was ripped out from under him, and he was flung into space unwittingly.

***

Keith was the very embodiment of a solar flare, fire and plasma coursing through his veins, at any given second ready to burst forward and vaporize anything in his path. As a child, one moment he would be cool, calm, and collected, then a blast of adrenaline would ignite him like propane. Mostly he was fine, obedient, level-headed under pressure. Then something would tick and he would lash out for the moment.

His dad was always level headed. His Papa's smooth Texan drawl would calm him down late at night when he was too amped up to sleep and would reason with him when he was too fired up to act rationally. It was just the two of them, his mother was never mentioned and he never thought to ask about her. He was content with his dad in their little home right outside of Houston.

School, however, was a different issue. It wasn’t the fact that his dad wasn’t around to calm him anymore, because even Keith could tell you, he was _not_ a daddy’s boy. It was the fact that everyone around him just added fuel to the flame like it was their favorite pastime. He was always towards the top of his class, no matter how many times he lashed out at his peers and teachers, and that just seemed to tick everyone off more. He had been suspended more times than he could count for petty fights that someone else had always started. However, being the one who always threw the first punch, he would be the one to get punished.

Despite the flammable record of conduct he sported with him, he was still accepted into the Garrison due to him being in the top 5% of his graduating class. His dad was proud beyond belief, but mostly relieved that his son would have a better life than he had. Mr. Kogane sent his son away from Houston with a smile and a new hoverbike.

Keith once again maintained top marks, this time leading the class from the number one spot. He was determined not to lose it here. Not here. He had come too far to have his temper ruin it now. He distanced himself from his classmates, focusing on his studies. During pilot training, he communicated with his crew at a bare minimum, costing them in the simulations.

Then he met Shiro, who took him under his wing. They grew close fast and Shiro helped him maintain his number one spot through tutoring in the simulations and helping him with communication with his crew. They became like brothers, inseparable and always smiling and laughing together. The day the Kerberos mission was announced, Keith was both proud and sad. Shiro would be completing his dream, but he would be far away from Keith. 

The day the Kerberos mission was deemed lost, Keith was similarly lost. He cried for days, alone in his dorm. His grades slipped as he tried to figure out what happened. Pilot error seemed wrong. Shiro would never make an error, not when his team was at stake. The Garrison was lying and he didn’t know why. He lashed out at Professor Iverson one afternoon after he failed a big simulation test and quit the Garrison the next day.

He didn’t dare go back to Houston, back to his dad. He couldn’t bear the disappointment. So his fire dwindled to a smoldering pile of coals as he holed up in a desert shack not far from the Garrison.

Unknown to him, he would eventually get his fire back, along with his brother. It would only take a year or so. In the meantime, a call was sounding to his soul from the desert. A call to the stars. A call to his destiny.

***

Lance viewed life like he saw the tide; the low points were always matched by the high swells. The current went wherever it pleased, those that existed in it were always colorful and vibrant. The beach that he called home was always like that. His family’s beach house towered behind him as he stood on the pathway that led to the sand overlooking the crystal blue waters.

He was much like the ocean himself, always going with the flow, never tying himself down to any one thing. 

The thing about the ocean, though, is that when you’re standing on the beach, it looks shallow. The sandbanks poke through the blue of the clear water, only revealing a smidgen of what lies beneath. But if you were to venture out further, you would realize that the ocean is the deepest thing on earth. Many secrets are hidden by the whitecaps on the horizon. The wind blows the water’s salt up to your face, leaving behind a taste on your lips and a film in your hair that lasts for days.

Yes, Lance was like the ocean. Never ceasing, always there. Beautiful and constantly changing, the light refracting in multiple ways over the waves that litter his surface, giving life to those around him and rushing up on the shore with as much power as the moon above would allow him.

Flying was what he wanted to do. He wanted to leave the shore behind and graze the seas' surface, flowing over the tops of the waves, surfing the wind’s currents instead of the water’s. When he got to the Garrison he worked as hard as his brain would allow him and ranked as a Fighter Pilot. He was ecstatic but was quickly brought back down to the ocean’s surface as his professors told him that it was just pure luck that he made it in, the reason behind his enrollment being that the top student, Keith, dropped out. 

No matter. He was outgoing and had many friends wherever he went, but he made himself many enemies as well. Because while the ocean is friendly on clear days, a hurricane can make it one of the deadliest forces known to man.

***

Katie was smart beyond her years. Always intuitive and on the lookout for new knowledge for her big brain to soak up like a leaf does with sunlight. Her brain had more neural connections than there were trees in a forest, sifting and sorting through the information filled soil around her until she reached the roots of the topic.

She sifted through her father’s journals and essays and textbooks, mastering physics and computer science by the time she was eleven. A prodigy, they called her. She skipped grades like they were stones on a flat mountain stream. She graduated high school and entered the Garrison at 13, only a few years behind her brother, who was twice her age. She was there in the crowd with her mother when both her brother and father took off for the stars.

Katie used her placement in the Garrison to her advantage when the Kerberos mission went awry. Once again she sifted through information, hacking into every informational storage device the Garrison had to offer. But she was kicked out before she was even able to graze the roots that ran deep enough to bury the fate of her family beneath soil filled with false information.

Her mother didn’t bat an eyelash when Katie became Pidge. Cutting her hair and making every effort to look the opposite of who she was. Female to Male. Long hair to short. Dresses to her brother’s old clothes. Contacts to her brother’s glasses. Pidge Gunderson replaced Katie Holt. She forged documents, birth certificates, social security cards, high school transcripts, anything and everything necessary to make a new person.

She got back in and was determined to find her family. She didn’t care if she had to build her own equipment to do so, because she was going to succeed this time no matter what. 

No one told her that she might not like the lengths she would have to go to.

***  
***

Throughout the battle, Shiro commanded his team with the persistence that came from a combination of both experience and will to live- to win. He fought alongside them and alongside their newfound allies. The planet’s army was a force to be reckoned with, and the Galra were giving all they had to maintain their grip on these people. Shiro never wanted to be a general, he wanted to be a son of the stars. But in order to become a descendant of the universe, one must first prove themselves worthy.

Hunk sheltered the nearby city with the bulk of his lion’s armor, firing blast after blast at the array of ships smothering the atmosphere. He dug Yellow’s claws into the dirt and steadied himself against the blasts that could exterminate countless lives behind him. He would be their rock. He would take as many blows as necessary for innocent lives to continue to thrive in this land.

Keith fought on the ground with the others, slicing like a wildfire through the sentries and soldiers that seemed endless and unrelenting. He burned down the enemy with a ferocity rivaled only by the sun. Each opponent was met with an unstoppable force that they could barely register before their demise. His fire roared the brightest and he made sure that everyone felt the heat of his rage.

Lance flowed through the enemy forces like a river rushes along the rapids. Violent and chaotic yet predestined and calculated. Each shot he aimed at a soldier was a blast that met its target with a lethal precision. He brought down his opponents with the unrelenting strength of an undertow, dragging them away from the hope of the shore. A hurricane had been unleashed and he was just going with the flow of the waves. He couldn’t be blamed for how vicious he was in the fight, the storm was in control. 

Pidge took out ships in her lion, using the advanced Altean technology to undermine the even more refined Galran tech. She exterminated the invasive species, removing them from her forest. The vines that Green unleashed clogged up the ships she couldn’t hack and built walls to protect those down on the planet’s surface. She was a falling tree in the middle of a war where everyone could hear her impact- and they feared it. 

***

The battle for the planet ended but not fast enough. Like a song that goes on for a beat too long, losing its audience in the last drawn out chord. Half the choir had fallen in the performance, drowned out by the wailing of notes made by a swell of bullets and explosions. A ballad as old as the stars it attempts to extinguish, war was a guitar strum of the ages- a violin string strung taught against the history that built it up. 

Children should never experience death, at least not on the scale of war- of genocide. Yet here they were, the defenders of the universe. All too young, youth now behind them, aged in mind and soul yet still children in every other sense. Even Shiro, the eldest, was too young for this. Fighters are supposed to be as old as the hills, their leaders as ancient as the mountains. Shiro felt as ageless as the stars he now found himself amongst, but was even younger than the trees that grew in his backyard on earth. 

As they retired for the night, shoulders heavier more so now than went they set out for the day, they came to accept this as their existence.

Shiro went straight to the bridge to continue in diplomatic discussions with the leaders of the planet.

Hunk propped himself up on a couch in the lounge, Pidge curled up at his side. Both exhausted from standing the ground that they did.

Keith and Lance both spent a brief hour in the healing pods, injuries from their own battles littering their skin and bones. When they got out within five minutes of each other, they both excused themselves to head to their rooms. Because while their outward injuries had healed, it would take much longer to heal the injuries on the inside. 

War, however much a necessity as it is in certain situations, is not something to be glorified. It’s gruesome and bloody, a slap in the face to anyone not prepared to experience it. People die before their time and in ways too horrendous to mention. The only thing worse than going out that way, was witnessing it. The only thing worse than witnessing it, was being the one on the giving end of such a death. And such is the life of a soldier. Such is the life of a Paladin. Such is the life of these children.

We’re all made of the same stardust- all related in some way. Cousins tied together by some distant exploded star, its elements making up our minds and bodies. These bodies artificially pitted against one another, killing each other off systematically and relentlessly.

Over the years, they’ll learn to cope. They will become stronger; physically, mentally and spiritually. They will learn to lean against one another in times of hardship, when the war refuses to be left outside and comes creeping in through the windows and the skylights. And, in the end, our heroes will return home. They will be changed. For worse or for better isn’t for us to decide, it’s for them to figure out for themselves. How they heal, how they cope- it all depends on how the cruelties of war has shaped them.

Children of the universe made into its defenders. A cruel and mangled twist of fate.

**Author's Note:**

> As always, I'm happily open and welcome to constructive criticism. If I made any mistakes, please feel free to let me know in a comment down below. Thanks for reading guys!  
> ~~~  
> My main tumblr is Cheater157 if y'all want to take a hop on over there.  
> My Voltron tumblr is defenders-of-the-memeverse if you really want the good fandom stuff.  
> ~~~


End file.
